Families of victims in River Thames Marchioness pleasure boat tragedy pay tribute at 25th anniversary of disaster | London Evening Standard Families of victims in River Thames Marchioness pleasure boat tragedy pay tribute at 25th anniversary of disaster Wednesday 20 August 2014 15:54 BST Tragedy: the Thames pleasure cruiser Marchioness being raised from the river in 1989 (Picture: PA) Families bereaved by the River Thames Marchioness pleasure boat tragedy have remembered their loved ones at a cathedral service on the 25th anniversary of the disaster. Crowding round a flower-strewn, candle-lit memorial stone at Southwark Cathedral in south London, the families, and some survivors, heard the names read out of all 51 young people who died in the tragedy. The riverboat Marchioness collided with the dredger Bowbelle and sank in the Thames in the early hours of August 20, 1989.

Among those who died was 19-year-old Francesca Dallaglio, the sister of former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio and merchant banker Antonio de Vasconcellos, whose 26th birthday was being celebrated aboard the Marchioness. Wreckage: the boat in 1989 (Picture: Rex) The names of the dead were also read out at a lunchtime Eucharist in the cathedral during which bereaved mother Judy Wellington, whose son Simon, 20, was lost on the Marchioness, gave a Bible reading. Among those at the cathedral was Margaret Lockwood Croft, 75, who lost her son Shaun, 26, in the disaster. Crash: rescue workers at the scene in 1989 (Picture: Rex) She said today: "Shaun is always in my thoughts. I have to hold on to all the memories - his laughter, his caring ways. "He was born on the same day as me.

He was the greatest birthday present I ever had." Related stories Pleasure boat disaster on River Thames was `a | The Independent Pleasure boat disaster on River Thames was `a A birthday voyage from celebration to tragedy THE QUESTIONS Friday 7 April 1995 23:02 BST Click to follow The Independent Online BY GLENDA COOPER At about 1.25am on 20 August 1989, a clear, moonlit night, more than 120 young people left Charing Cross pier on a tiny disco boat for an all-night birthday party along the Thames. Those who joined Antonio de Vasconcellos, a 26-year-old banker from West London, on the Marchioness to eat, drink, dance and have their tarot cards read, were mainly in their teens or twenties, many of them actors, models or artists. Within minutes of leaving, the pleasure boat collided with a massive Thames sand dredger, the Bowbelle. Fifty-one people on board the Marchioness died, more than in the disasters at King's Cross, Clapham, or in the M1 aircrash.

The disaster was a "predictable event that was utterly preventable", Michael Mansfield QC, representing the families, told the second inquest into the disaster when it ended yesterday. Nearly a quarter of an hour before the Marchioness left the pier, the Bowbelle, with its crew of nine, had started its journey down the Thames and out to sea. Its captain, Douglas Henderson, was at the bridge, having spent the late afternoon drinking six pints of beer. The skipper of the Marchioness could only see directly behind by leaving the wheel and looking through a hatch. Mr Henderson had severely limited visibility in front. Because of the Bowbelle's "trim" (the angle between bow and stern) that night, the sea surface of invisibility amounted to 500 yards - double the amount allowed. The Marchioness passed its sister ship, the Hurlingham, as they approached Southwark Bridge. It was the Hurlingham's passengers who first noticed the 262ft-long dredger. Before their eyes, the Marchioness seemed to be pushed round and then under the bow of the Bowbelle before it went under. Here stories diverge.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch report said "the collision took place . . . just above Cannon Street Railway Bridge and near the middle of the river". But more than 10 witnesses from the Hurlingham, arguably in the best position to see, told the inquest the collision took place before or under Southwark Bridge. If they were correct, it would have been impossible for the Marchioness to have been changing course to move in front of the Bowbelle, as had previously been believed. The MAIB report said it appeared to a look-out on the Bowbelle and to shore witnesses that the "Marchioness altered course to port". But Captain James de Coverly, who co-ordinated the inquiry, told the inquest it had never been intended to imply there had been a deliberate and significant change of course. Any swing had been due to the swell of water between the ships or a slight realignment to approach the arches of Cannon Street Railway Bridge. On the Bowbelle, lack of communication was proving fatal. A look-out, Terence Blayney, who had drunk eight pints of beer the previous afternoon, was positioned on the forecastle.

But David James, the chief engineer of the Bowbelle, confirmed to the inquest that there were no loud hailers or telephones for direct communication - the three walkie-talkies had not been used for some time. When collision was inevitable, Mr Blayney had to shout nearly the length of a football pitch. The chief engineer said he could not understand a word. Those on the deck of the Marchioness saw the Bowbelle seconds before their ship tipped over, throwing them into the Thames. When the first jolt was felt downstairs, guests had started singing a pop song, Rock The Boat. The song was never finished. The ship was plunged into darkness and turned over. Furniture was thrown around, trapping and injuring many of the party-goers. As the ship sank, the waters rose around them and many were swept out into the Thames. For the fortunate, the return to the surface meant they had fought only half the battle. Of those who escaped from the vessel a quarter would die in the water. Many of those rescued had to survive in the Thames for at least 15 minutes. It is impossible to establish whether any of the deaths were due to the confused rescue operation.

The first alert came at 1.46am when the Hurlingham was heard over marine radio broadcasting "Wapping Police, Wapping Police, emergency. Pleasure boat is sunk, Cannon Street Railway Bridge, all emergency aid please". James Currie, the captain on duty at Woolwich marine radio service, misheard and thought the location was Battersea Bridge - the opposite direction. He gave the misheard location to the police, who unknowingly sent the fire brigade boats in the wrong direction."I can't explain why I heard Battersea road bridge rather than Cannon Street rail bridge," he said. Twenty minutes after the collision the fire brigade was given the real location. When they arrived at Blackfriars Bridge they could find no survivors. Passengers on the Hurlingham rescued more than 20 survivors. One police launch managed to drag 22 people on to their boat, which was designed for three crew and two passengers. Another managed between 15 and 20. In all, 80 people survived. Although the search continued for most of the night, no one was found alive after the first 30 minutes. Only one body was recovered that night by the fire brigade.

No others were found until the following day when the wreck was raised east of Southwark Bridge: there were 24 bodies found in different sections of the boat. Over the next few days the remaining 26 bodies were gradually recovered along the river, the last being Mr de Vasconcellos himself. In what families claimed was a final indignity, all but two of those found in the river had their hands removed for fingerprinting purposes, although only two were identified this way. Most of the families only found out their relatives had been treated in this way more than two years later. Linda Ali-Hunt, whose daughter Julie died, was one of the few to know and said she was asked to keep quiet about it by police so as not to distress the other mothers. The families were to discover at the inquest that there had been no written records kept about when it was decided hands should be removed, or when the request to do so was granted by the coroner.

More about: Marchioness victims remembered 25 years on at service - BBC News BBC News Marchioness victims remembered 25 years on at service 20 August 2014 Close share panel Image copyright PA Image caption There were 131 people on board when the pleasure boat sank on 20 August 1989 Relatives of 51 people who died when the Marchioness pleasure boat sank in the River Thames in London have gathered at a service to remember them 25 years on. Marchioness was packed with 131 partygoers when it collided with dredger Bowbelle on 20 August 1989. The names of the victims were read out at Southwark Cathedral, where 51 roses were laid and 51 candles were lit. After the service, relatives dropped flowers into the river. Following the disaster, a campaign by the Marchioness Action Group for improved safety led to lifeboat services being provided on the river. Representatives from the Royal National Lifeboat Institute and the Port of London Authority were present at the lunchtime Eucharist service.

Holding on to memories A bereaved mother, Judy Wellington, whose 20-year-old son Simon died when the boat sank, delivered a Bible reading during the service. Margaret Lockwood Croft, 75, whose son Shaun, 26, died in the disaster, said: "Shaun is always in my thoughts. I have to hold on to all the memories - his laughter, his caring ways. "He was born on the same day as me. He was the greatest birthday present I ever had." Odette Penwarden, 67, who survived the disaster, led the prayers. Image copyright Family handout to PA Image caption Shaun Lockwood Croft's mother said she was holding on to 'all the memories' She said: "I had five friends on the boat and sadly they all died." Richard Hall, a passenger on another pleasure boat, the Hurlingham, who helped rescue people from the struck vessel also attended the service. He said: "I remember it all. It's all crystal clear - the impact, the boat going down.

"I managed to pull four people from the water and those on the Hurlingham rescued 28 in total." In 1991 a report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch into the disaster said poor lookouts on both vessels was the immediate cause of the tragedy. In his 2001 report, Lord Justice Clarke reached the same conclusion following a public inquiry. During the decade-long gap, captain of the dredger Bowbelle, Douglas Henderson, was also formally acquitted after two separate trials failed to reach verdicts on a charge of his failing to keep a proper look-out. An inquest into the disaster returned a verdict of unlawful killing, but in July 1996 the Crown Prosecution Service said there was insufficient evidence to justify any further criminal proceedings.

August 20, 1989: 51 people killed as Thames pleasure boat Marchioness is rammed by dredger - BT August 20, 1989: 51 people killed as Thames pleasure boat Marchioness is rammed by dredger Partygoers in their twenties died when the anchor of the 1,880-tonne Bowbelle sliced through the side of the pleasure cruiser, which rolled over and began to capsize immediately. Share this Print this story The Marchioness, a small pleasure cruiser packed with around 130 partygoers, was sunk with the loss of 51 lives when it was struck by a barge on the River Thames on this day in 1989. The boat, which had been hired by a young entrepreneur named Jonathan Phang to celebrate the birthday of his business partner Antonio de Vasconcellos, was hit by the dredger Bowbelle near the Cannon Street railway bridge as both vessels headed downriver in the early hours of the morning.

The anchor of the 1,880-tonne barge sliced through the side of the 46-tonne Marchioness, which rolled over and began to capsize immediately; as it did so, the Bowbelle (pictured below) continued forward, pushing the stricken cruiser underneath it and deeper into the water. The smaller boat was completely immersed in no more than 30 seconds, with most of the victims trapped in its hull. The majority of survivors had been on its upper decks when the collision occurred; police commandeered other small boats to pick them up at the scene. An investigation found the disaster to have been caused by the poor visibility from each ship's wheelhouse, the fact that both vessels were using the centre of the river and the lack of clear instructions to the lookout on the Bowbelle. The captain of the dredger, Douglas Henderson, was twice prosecuted for failing to keep an adequate lookout but was acquitted as the juries were unable to reach a verdict on both occasions. However, a coroner's inquest in 1995 found the victims had been unlawfully killed.

Survivors and families of victims campaigned more than 10 years for a public inquiry, which was finally held in the year 2000. Chairman Lord Justice Clarke’s report blamed poor lookouts on both vessels for the collision and criticised the boats’ owners for failing to instruct and monitor their crews correctly. Lord Clarke’s recommendations also led to four lifeboat search and rescue stations being set up on the Thames by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in 2002, as well as changes to laws governing inland waters. What are your memories of the Marchioness disaster? Has enough been done to prevent such things happening again? Let us know in the Comments section below. Marchioness disaster - Did you know? The Marchioness was launched in 1923, and had been one of the 'little ships' involved in the Dunkirk evacuation of 1940. The boat was hired to celebrate the 26th birthday of banker Antonio de Vasconcellos, who would lose his life in the disaster; most of the other victims were also in their twenties. Captain Douglas Henderson was not at the helm of the Bowbelle when it hit the Marchioness.

It was later revealed that he had drunk either five or six pints of beer in the afternoon before the collision. Among the victims was Frances Dallaglio, sister of future England rugby captain Lawrence. At just 19 years of age, she was the youngest person on board. Several victims managed to escape from the stricken vessel but subsequently drowned in the strong currents on the Thames. The Bowbelle crew were also criticised for not deploying its two lifeboats and life rafts. A decision was made by Westminster Coroner Dr Paul Knapman to cut off the hands of more than 20 victims for identification purposes - an action later criticised by Lord Clarke in his 2001 report. A 2001 inquiry by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency into the competence and behaviour of Douglas Henderson concluded that he should be allowed to keep his master's certificate, as he met all the service and medical fitness requirements. Seven years later, the Bowbelle – since sold to a Madeiran company and renamed Bom Rei - split in half and sank off the coast of Ponta do Sol, Madeira. It was not salvaged, and is now an attraction for divers in the area.

Share this Victims of Marchioness pleasure boat disaster remembered | UK news | The Guardian London Victims of Marchioness pleasure boat disaster remembered Survivors and relatives of the 51 people who died after boat sank in river Thames attend 25th anniversary ceremony The wrecked hull of the Marchioness lying partially submerged after colliding with dredger Bowbelle. Photograph: Tony Harris/PA Press Association Wednesday 20 August 2014 09.50 EDT First published on Wednesday 20 August 2014 09.50 EDT Close This article is 2 years old Those bereaved by the Marchioness pleasure boat tragedy have remembered their loved ones at a cathedral service on the 25th anniversary of the disaster that led 51 people to lose their lives in the Thames. Crowding around a flower-strewn, candle-lit memorial stone at Southwark Cathedral in south London , the families and some survivors heard the names read out of all 51 young people who died in the tragedy. In the early hours of 20 August 1989 the river boat Marchioness collided with the dredger Bowbelle and sank in the Thames in central London.

Among those who died was Francesca Dallaglio, 19, the sister of former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio, and Antonio de Vasconcellos, a merchant banker whose 26th birthday was being celebrated on board the Marchioness. The names of the dead had also been read out at a lunchtime service in the cathedral, during which Judy Wellington, whose son Simon, 20, died on the Marchioness, gave a Bible reading. Among those at the cathedral was Margaret Lockwood Croft, 75, who lost her son Shaun, 26, in the disaster. She said: "Shaun is always in my thoughts. I have to hold on to all the memories – his laughter, his caring ways. "He was born on the same day as me. He was the greatest birthday present I ever had," she said. Through the Marchioness Action Group, Lockwood Croft led a campaign for improved safety standards on the Thames that eventually led to lifeboat services and other safety features being introduced on the river. Representatives of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the Port of London Authority were at Wednesday's service.

Survivor of the Marchioness pleasure boat talks about the flashbacks, the guilt - and his slow recovery. By Tim Ecott Published: 8 Aug 2009 The Marchioness disaster starring Johnny Escobar as Miles Miller - YouTube The Marchioness disaster starring Johnny Escobar as Miles Miller Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Feb 16, 2011 The Marchioness disaster occurred on the River Thames in London, in the early hours of 20 August 1989. The pleasure boat Marchioness sank after being run down by the dredger Bowbelle, near Cannon Street Railway Bridge. There were 131 people on the Marchioness crewing, waiting and attending a private birthday party; fifty-one of them drowned. This is a clip of the movie.

Category Marchioness survivors and victims' families recall Thames disaster - BBC News BBC News Marchioness survivors and victims' families recall Thames disaster By Andy Dangerfield BBC News, London 20 August 2014 Read more about sharing. Close share panel Image caption More than 130 partygoers were on board the Marchioness pleasure boat on the evening of 20 August, 1989 On a hot, late-summer evening in 1989, the Marchioness pleasure boat, packed with more than 130 partygoers, collided with the dredger Bowbelle and sank in the River Thames, killing 51 people. Twenty-five years on, survivors and victims' families recall what happened and the legacy that remains. "People were just starting to dance," said Iain Philpott, who was a 26-year-old fashion photographer, from Highbury, north London. "We'd been on board for less than 40 minutes." He and his girlfriend were among the many twenty-somethings who had been invited to the party organised for banker Antonio de Vasconcellos' 26th birthday.

"We were in the lower dining saloon when the dredger struck," he recalls. "Through the window, we could see the water building up as the stern was being pushed. Image copyright judy wellington Image caption Twenty-year-old model Simon Senior was among those who died in the disaster Losing him tore out my heart. My world fell apart. I felt helpless, went into shock and couldn't move Judy Wellington, Simon Senior's mother "The lights went out and we knew water had got into the hull," he says. "There were lots of screams and next thing, we were all in the water." Model Simon Senior, who was 20 years old, was also on board. Mr Senior modelled for ID magazine, lived with his girlfriend on west London's trendy King's Road and played bass guitar in a band. "He was creative, artistic and had an amazing sense of humour," says his mother Judy Wellington. "He just cut to the chase and made you laugh in seconds. "He had this need to be successful. There weren't many black models and he just wanted to be the best." On board the Marchioness, Mr Senior was with a woman on the dance floor but when the craft crashed they were thrown apart.

He escaped into the river water outside the vessel and started trying to swim to shore but the current was against him. "Fate was also against them that night," his mother recalls. Mr Philpott also managed to escape from the vessel into the river. "I saw an empty barrel of beer coming towards me and grabbed hold of it, then got a few other people to hold on," he said. The group struggled over to another party boat, were pulled onboard and transferred to Westminster Pier before being taken to hospital. But Mr Philpott's friends and girlfriend did not survive. "I probably spent a month going to friends' funerals," he said. Ms Wellington said she found it hard initially to accept her son was dead.

Disaster and aftermath •On 20 August 1989, 131 people were on board the Marchioness when it was hit by the dredger Bowbelle •51 people died •Coroner Dr Paul Knapman decided to cut the hands off more than 20 victims for identification purposes •A public inquiry in 2000 said poor lookouts on both vessels were responsible for the collision •The captain of the Bowbelle, Douglas Henderson, had drunk six pints of lager on afternoon of the accident •The Metropolitan Police were "ill-prepared" and had no contingency plan for such an event, the inquiry found •January 2002, Royal National Lifeboat Institution introduces four lifeboat stations on the River Thames "All I kept thinking was my child is somewhere but I couldn't reach him," she said. "I couldn't eat or sleep and when I did sleep, I'd wake up and that feeling of pain would come back inside of me. "Then I started to realise he was not coming back." A few days later, a body matching Mr Senior's description was found in the river near HMS Belfast. "Losing him tore out my heart," she said. "My world fell apart.

I felt helpless, went into shock and couldn't move." As if the pain of mourning friends was not bad enough, the months and years that followed the tragedy were to test the survivors and victims' families even more. Image copyright PA Image caption The Marchioness collided with the dredger Bowbelle and sank in the River Thames in central London Image copyright Await Image caption A total of 51 people were killed in the tragedy Some of the families had to come to terms with the controversial decision by Westminster Coroner Dr Paul Knapman to cut off the hands of more than 20 of the victims for identification purposes - an action criticised by Lord Justice Clarke in his subsequent 2001 report into the circumstances surrounding the collision. Ms Wellington said of her son: "He was a brilliant musician. It's unbearable to think they cut his hand off, but nothing was said about it." Many families threw their efforts into improving safety on the river, frustrated at what they regarded as a lack of government commitment to tackling the issue. Margaret Lockwood-Croft, whose son Shaun, 26, died in the disaster, was one of the the Marchioness Action Group's founding members.

She proudly lists just some of the achievements of the group's campaigning: the introduction of lifeboats on the River Thames in 2001, new laws on being in charge of vessels under the influence of alcohol, and training for police family liaison officers. Image copyright PA Image caption After the Marchioness collided with the 880-tonne dredger, it sank within minutes "A lot of legacies have come out of the Marchioness disaster so those 51 people, I'm sure in their place of comfort, they are proud something has come out of their deaths," she said. Meanwhile, Ms Wellington said her son's death had also left a positive legacy. "Over the years I have decided everything I do has to be in Simon's memory," she said. "In his 20 small years, he had so much desire to do something to change." After he died, she went to college, gained a degree, then did teacher training and set up a language school. She now runs the school and works with young people in community development. "I changed my life so I could take him with me," she said.

"I feel his legacy has lived on." Twenty years ago next week, 51 people died in the Marchioness pleasure boat disaster - here one survivor tells his haunting story | Daily Mail Online comments Horror: Andrew Sutton survived the Marchioness disaster, when a pleasure boat collided with the Bowbelle on the River Thames In the early hours of August 20, 1989, the Marchioness sank after a devastating crash on the River Thames. Of the 131 party-goers on the boat, 51 died, many trapped in the mangled wreck. Andrew Sutton was on board that night. Now, speaking for the first time, he talks about the flashbacks, the guilt - and his slow recovery. 'I looked up and saw a monster. The boat that hit us was a big black shape above me and it looked like it had eyes. Then the deck was tilting and I grabbed Helen's hand. "We have to go now," I said, and we stepped into the water.' Andrew Sutton's voice drops low as he tells the story. He pushes his glasses up on to his forehead and takes a deep breath.

He has relived that moment from 20 years ago thousands of times, but it still shakes him. His memories are as unchanging as a loop of film that he can replay in his head. But the film sometimes plays when he doesn't want it to. Now 48, he looks younger. But his blue-eyed gaze is steady, and when he speaks he is thoughtful. We are sitting in his offices in North London. He runs his own photographic and video company now, but at the time of the Marchioness disaster he was a graphic designer. Many of the other passengers had creative jobs, in music or the fashion industry, and some were City workers. At the time, some of the Press coverage of the accident was tinged, in Andrew's view, with criticism, as if those aboard the boat were from a 'fast set' who were somehow killed because they were enjoying themselves too much. It is one of the things he is still angry about. 'I wasn't rich, and none of my friends were. I've wanted to tell people that since it happened.

But I haven't felt able to talk about it publicly until now.' Fatal: The wreckage of the 46-tonne Marchioness which stood little chance when it was crushed by the 1,880-tonne dredger That day, August 20, 1989, the Marchioness had done a normal day's work, taking sightseers down the Thames as far as Greenwich to see the landmarks of the historic riverfront. In the evening, however, she had been hired to celebrate the 26th birthday of Antonio de Vasconcellos, a Cambridge graduate who worked for a merchant bank. Andrew didn't know Vasconcellos, and went to the party because he had been drinking that Saturday night with his friend, photographer Chris Garnham. Through work, Garnham knew one of the party organisers, Jonathan Phang, then an up-and-coming star on the modelling and fashion circuit. Andrew wasn't in the mood for a party, having spent most of that week at home with flu, but Chris had suggested that an outing would cheer him up.

So Andrew, his girlfriend Helen, Chris and two other friends, Gillian Mosley and photographic assistant Tony Loh Manyem, turned up at the Embankment pier shortly before 1am, where Jonathan Phang welcomed them on board. However, feeling like outsiders, Andrew and his group headed for the foredeck of the Marchioness. Half an hour later the boat pushed off, heading east against an incoming tide. 'I saw the terror in his eyes - then he was gone' ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 'Chris Garnham brought us a beer and then went inside to dance, and Tony, Helen and I just stayed in the bows watching the cityscape unfold. It's funny, I remember. . .' Andrew falters for the first time. 'I remember Tony telling me that he couldn't swim, and I said it didn't matter because we weren't going very far. We were in the middle of London - what could happen?' According to the dry narrative report of the Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents, the Marchioness was hit by the dredger Bowbelle at 1.46am. With 127 passengers and four crew, the party boat had just cleared Southwark Bridge.

The Bowbelle was behind the Marchioness, both boats adjusting their course to stay in the centre of the river to go under Cannon Street Railway Bridge. Somehow they converged, although crew members on the party boat had already seen the dredger coming up behind them and assumed it was going to overtake. The dredger had passed a similar party boat, the Hurlingham, a few hundred yards upstream. At eight-anda-half knots, the dredger was moving twice as fast as either of the pleasure cruisers. Two crewmen stationed on the bow of the dredger failed to see the Marchioness ahead, and the skipper of the Bowbelle, Douglas Henderson, was not at the helm. He was later criticised for having drunk six pints of beer on the afternoon of the day of the accident. As the collision became inevitable, at least one deckhand on the Marchioness shouted a warning to his skipper Stephen Faldo, who died in the accident. Faldo applied full throttle to try to escape the bigger boat - to no avail. The Bowbelle weighed 1,880 tonnes and was more than 260ft in length.

The Marchioness was just 85ft long, and weighed only 46 tonnes. The dredger's iron hull swept the party boat's wooden superstructure aside, crushing the Marchioness with such force that her upper deck separated from the hull. Messy aftermath: The Marchioness is hoisted from the River Thames, as the Government orders a public inquiry into boat safety For a short time it was pushed sideways across the dredger's bow and then forced under water like a toy. In less than a minute the Marchioness was completely submerged. Most of the partygoers were trapped in the saloon. Twenty-four of the drowned victims were found below decks, and the remaining 27 recovered from various parts of the Thames over the coming days. They included the birthday boy, Antonio de Vasconcellos, and the youngest person on board, 19-year-old Francesca Dallaglio, sister of the future England rugby captain, Lawrence. For Andrew, the subsequent half-hour after the collision was deeply traumatic. Because he was at the very front of the Marchioness, he escaped physical injury.

But once in the water, he was aware of the great looming presence of the Bowbelle pushing the party boat aside and then sweeping it beneath the dark surface of the Thames. What he remembers vividly as the 'eyes' of the dredger were the hawse holes cut in the gunwales for a cable to be passed through. 'I had Helen by the hand. She was screaming, barely able to stay afloat,' he recalls. 'I tried to swim away from the dredger, dragging her along, but then there was a sensation of something around my legs. 'I put my head under water and saw my friend Tony holding on to my thighs. I could see the terror in his eyes. He was being dragged down by the boat, or by the current . . . I don't know. But I couldn't do anything, and I couldn't let go of my girlfriend. And then he was gone.' For many years, Andrew says, he thought about Tony every single day, blaming himself for not being able to save him. Of the small group at the bow of the Marchioness, Chris Garnham died, too, though Gillian survived. In the water, Andrew's instincts took over.

'The Bowbelle was very close to us and I could hear the thump-thump of the propellers. I knew we had to get away to avoid being sucked into them and I started dragging Helen towards the shore. Her jacket was dragging her down and I had to fight to pull it off her.' The wreck of the Marchioness was pushed towards the bottom of the river, and survivors described the horror of finding themselves in utter darkness, tumbling against bodies amid churning, coffee-dark water. Most of those who lived were rescued by the other pleasure boat, the Hurlingham; the Bowbelle just carried on. 'It just kept going. This thing with eyes that had eaten us up and spat us out,' says Andrew. Unlike most of the other survivors, he and Helen were being pushed rapidly back upstream by the three-knot tide. Andrew says he saw one other couple being sucked under by the powerful currents around one of the bridge stanchions. 'I was shouting at them, trying to get them to swim away from the bridge, but they didn't hear me.

I saw a pair of legs in blue trousers kicking at the surface, and then they were gone.' 'I cried for what that boat did to all of us' ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Fighting to stay afloat and support Helen, Andrew tried to find anything in the darkness he could hang on to. They passed close to other boats and barges moored in the river, but everything he tried to grab was greasy and covered in algae. 'I remember,' he says, 'thinking as the lights on the South Bank drifted past that I was seeing London from an unusual angle, one that not many people had ever seen. And then being struck by the weirdness of having that thought when I was fighting for my life.' After a few minutes, he saw rescue boats heading downstream, but they couldn't see him. Like the Bowbelle, he felt they were ignoring him. Once again, the feeling that he wasn't part of the events surrounding the Marchioness was reinforced. 'I felt so utterly alone. Why couldn't anyone see us right here in the middle of this city? How could we be so . . . abandoned?' Later, near the Oxo Tower, Andrew found something buoyant floating in the river.

It was orange and there were ropes attached to it, something he could force under Helen's arms to keep her afloat. She was by now unconscious. After almost half an hour in the water he, too, was exhausted. 'I think I had given up then,' Andrew says, softly. 'Time to go to sleep and let go. My head was underwater and I had a feeling that everything was fine. But then I saw Helen's legs above me as if she was going up into the sky. That's when I passed out.' Helen was being dragged aboard a police launch. Moments later, Andrew came round when a policeman stepped on his hand in the rescue boat. The two policemen on board were resuscitating Helen. Andrew heard one of them say: 'It looks like that one's still going, too.' For Andrew, this was another small piece of rejection. He was 'that one' - just something plucked from the river, a piece of flotsam. He was taken to St Thomas's Hospital, but discharged himself after a few hours. There were other people who needed the doctors more than he did. A nurse arranged a taxi and warned him that there were reporters at the hospital entrance.

'I went out another way and arrived home feeling as if I'd had a weird dream. Nothing in my head made sense.' The next few weeks passed in a blur of tears, funerals and terrifying flashbacks of the Bowbelle. The survivors retreated into their own pockets of grief. Mixed with the horror of the memories, and grief at the deaths of Chris Garnham and Tony Loh Manyem, was the sense that Andrew was alone. It was only months later, when the legal wrangling began over who might be to blame for the disaster, that any form of psychotherapy was offered. The aftermath was protracted and messy. A public inquiry was refused by the then Transport Minister Cecil Parkinson, and again in 1993 by his successor Stephen Norris. A report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch was criticised by relatives and survivors as a whitewash. Though the Bowbelle's skipper was twice tried in court for failing to keep a proper lookout, the juries could not reach a verdict both times, and Henderson was acquitted. Later attempts by the families of some of the victims to bring a private prosecution for corporate manslaughter against him and the Bowbelle's owners failed.

Criticisms of the coroner's office, the crews of the Marchioness and the Bowbelle, the Port of London Authority and even the lack of preparedness of the Thames River Police were swamped in a complex legal row that continued until a coroner's inquest finally ruled in 1995 that the victims had been 'unlawfully killed'. Not until February 2000 was a formal investigation launched by John Prescott, then Transport Minister. Lord Justice Clarke then reported that a formal investigation should have been held earlier. Meanwhile, Andrew continued to deal with the flashbacks and the nightmares, the chronic insecurity and depression. For several months, if not years, he says, he would find excuses not to leave home. But, slowly, he did rebuild his career - although the flashbacks never went away completely. They were always the same: the image of the massive black bow of the dredger, and those 'eyes', coming out of the night. 'We had to get away from the propellers' ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// In 2000, Andrew was introduced to Mary Kayitesi Blewitt, founder of the Rwandan Survivors Fund (survivors-fund.org.uk).

She had learned that Andrew had an interest in an eco-tourism project in Tanzania, near Rwanda. As he was travelling to the region regularly, would he be interested in helping to videotape testimony statements from genocide survivors? In Rwanda, and confronted with people who had suffered unimaginably, Andrew found that he forged a connection. 'I recognise the way the genocide survivors speak about what happened,' he says. 'The facial tics, the way people pause and the way you can see they've gone back to a moment that is truly awful, those are things I understand.' At last, Andrew realised his fears, his nightmares were normal. In Southwark Cathedral there is a memorial to the 51 people who died on the Marchioness. Andrew says it is not his memorial. He isn't religious, describing himself as 'mildly Buddhist, if anything'. However, he has recently found something approaching his own memorial. It is the Bowbelle itself, the boat he always called 'the monster'. The dredger was sold to a Portuguese company shortly after the accident and renamed the Bom Rei in 1990. In May 1996, she broke apart and sank in just over 30m of water off Madeira.

Last month, Andrew visited the wreck. He filmed the event, and I went to his office to see the pictures. On screen, he and two diving partners swim down a tethered line towards a murky silhouette. In the green Atlantic light, they slowly swim forward. Andrew reaches the pointed bow and, for a moment, hangs at the lip, staring downwards at the sea floor. He flips forward and descends the last few metres to sit on the seabed, finally facing the deadly V-shape that has haunted his dreams. 'It's certainly the first time I've cried under water,' he says. 'I was expecting it to be difficult. I warned my dive buddies to watch me carefully in case I swam off and did something stupid. But gradually, as I swam around the wreck, I realised that the Bowbelle was just a boat. 'But I still had to go up to the bow and see those "eyes". And touch it. I definitely felt something, a physical discharge of . . .' He pauses. I think he is about to cry, but he just speaks even more quietly and stares at the video images on the screen in front of us for a moment. '... energy, anger - I don't know.

In a way, I actually felt sorry for the boat because its own life has ended. Now it's just a wreck, but it's becoming a reef, being colonised by algae and providing a home for fish and crabs and snails. It's actually a source of life. God, that makes me sound like a dreadful old hippy, doesn't it?' Andrew turns blokey, trying to laugh off the idea. But then he takes a deep breath: 'I have never gone under water without thinking of Tony and Chris and how they died. That's what made me cry when I touched the boat. For them, for me, for all of us. For what it did to us, our bodies, our lives, our everything.' Will he ever return to the wreck? 'No,' he says. 'I've done it. In my head I've replaced the picture of the monster with these new images. I know where it is; it's just another shipwreck.' So are the events of August 20, 1989, finally behind him? 'Yes,' he says, 'but, I'll never lose the memories of the people who were involved. I still talk to Chris and Tony in my head.

But even if I am near the Thames and I start thinking about the accident, it's not with a sense of foreboding any more. Just simple, ordinary sadness.' • © BBC ON THIS DAY | 20 | 1989: Marchioness river crash 'kills 30' About This Site | Text Only 1989: Marchioness river crash 'kills 30' At least 30 people died when a pleasure cruiser, packed with young party-goers, and a barge collided on the River Thames. The captain and second mate of the barge, the dredger Bowbelle, are now under arrest. Among those still missing are the captain of the cruiser, the Marchioness, and a city banker who chartered the boat to celebrate his birthday. There are fears the final death toll could be as high as 60. Divers are still searching below deck where more bodies are expected to be found. Most of those on board were young people in their 20s. Both vessels were moving down river towards Southwark Bridge in the early hours of Sunday morning when they collided.

The Marchioness's owners said the 90-ton boat was struck a blow from the 2,000-ton dredger which forced it directly into the larger vessel's path. They said the Bowbelle then ran over the cruiser forcing it underwater "like a bicycle being run over by a lorry". Search So far the owners of the Bowbelle have made no public comment. Police commandeered other boats to search for survivors who had been tipped into the river after the collision. Party-goers on other cruisers witnessed the events and some tried to help. "We were all shouting at the driver to back up to try and rescue some of the people which he did. "We got back and some of the guys jumped into the water and pulled some of the people onto our boat," said one witness, Rob Elliott. So far 89 people are known to have survived the crash. Earlier today some of them left the hospitals where they had been taken after being pulled from the river.

Dredger sinks after hitting Thames Barrier (From HeraldScotland) Jobs Business Directory Local Info Dating Buy Sell Book an Ad Dredger sinks after hitting Thames Barrier A 3000-tonne dredger that crashed into the Thames Barrier and partially sank in dense fog was last night set to remain on the riverbed as salvage teams worked to pump out its gravel cargo. The 98-metre Sand Kite is from the same fleet as the ill-fated Bowbelle, which collided with the pleasure boat Marchioness in 1989, killing 51 people. Salvage teams were on the 23-year-old vessel and emptying out the tonnes of sea-dredged gravel which it had collected before making its trip up the Thames. Loading article content It had a gaping hole in its hull and Port of London Authority divers were swimming underneath to assess the extent of the damage as ropes were attached to the barriers on both sides of the ship to stop it drifting in the strong Thames currents. Both the Sand Kite and Bowbelle were built in the same shipyard in Troon, Scotland, 10 years apart, and are linked with the South Coast Shipping Company based in Southampton.

A PLA spokesman said: ''A salvage organisation has been drafted in to help repair and eventually move the ship. Further inspections need to be carried out tonight and it is expected that the ship will be moved at the earliest during low tide tomorrow. ''The ship will tonight be under the close scrutiny of the navigation control centre and the river will be partially opened up to other ships.'' No-one was injured when the ship hit a pier at 6.50am as it was heading to Angerstein's Wharf. All 10 crew members were taken off by another boat while the master and chief engineer remained on board to oversee the salvage operation. Labour MP for Gravesham Chris Pond yesterday spoke out against proposals to let more ships up the Thames without a pilot. He said: ''The PLA has been pushing some proposals to change the pilotage limits on ships so those of 80 metres or less in length will no longer need to take on a pilot to get into the Port of London. Pilots on the Thames and Medway are deeply concerned about this.

''The 3000-tonne ship that ran into the barrier this morning is 98 metres long and it's already one of the ships that the PLA exempts from the need to have a pilot. ''These are not rowing boats - these are substantial vessels. We need to hold an inquiry to see what actually took place,'' he said. A spokeswoman for South Coast Shipping said: ''Today's incident with the Sand Kite is being investigated. It is too early to say what caused the accident.''

Question: What was the name of the pleasure boat that sank in the Thames in 1989
Answer: The Marchioness